Do CL ever get to use AON armor scheme?

[malthaussen]

TSIA.  It's 1921, and I've finally got AON armor, but if I try to build a CL with it the game changes it to a CA.  Will this change later?  My first game, so I don't know the answer.

  -- Mal

[elouda]

Most likely you are trying to use a belt thickness that is too thick.

CL are limited to 3in belts (4in with Missile Cruisers technology apparently).

[asdfzxc922]

There's an old bug where CLs will be detected as CAs if their secondary caliber is set to 6" or greater, even if you don't actually have any.

[krawa]

For CL the sloped deck behind belt is IMO better anyway, at least if the CL is intended to fight other CL. Against CL your deck armor is never at risk of beeing penetrated, but as you are limited to 3‘ B you need all support avaiblable to keep your machinery and magazine safe.

[director]

Of course, the Brooklyns had 5" over the machinery spaces, the Clevelands had 3 1/2 to 5", the Town class had 4.5", even the Mogami's went up to 5" and La Galissonniere had about 4"... so, right! 3" maximum for every light cruiser it is!

[dorn]

Dec 10, 2023 13:11:38 GMT -6 krawa said:

For CL the sloped deck behind belt is IMO better anyway, at least if the CL is intended to fight other CL. Against CL your deck armor is never at risk of beeing penetrated, but as you are limited to 3‘ B you need all support avaiblable to keep your machinery and magazine safe.

Deck armour is at risk of penetration if it is not at least 2" thick by splinters.

[blarglol]

Dec 18, 2023 15:54:44 GMT -6 dorn said:

Dec 10, 2023 13:11:38 GMT -6 krawa said:

For CL the sloped deck behind belt is IMO better anyway, at least if the CL is intended to fight other CL. Against CL your deck armor is never at risk of beeing penetrated, but as you are limited to 3‘ B you need all support avaiblable to keep your machinery and magazine safe.

Deck armour is at risk of penetration if it is not at least 2" thick by splinters.

Really? Is that why most auto-design protected cruisers default to 2" decks? The splinters can pass through into engineering or magazine spaces? It's interesting because the risk of plunging fire is almost nonexistent at such early eras, so I usually cut down the decks to 1", 1.5" at most, usually only for armored cruisers.

[pratapon51]

Yeah. Medium HE guns also have a not-insignificant chance of penetrating 1-2" D or TT, so even 6" HE is a threat to such thin armor. While this "should" be uncommon in early era, it does happen enough that it's better to armor the areas more than historical levels.

It might also be a flaw of the damage model used in game.

[dorn]

Dec 18, 2023 19:56:16 GMT -6 blarglol said:

Dec 18, 2023 15:54:44 GMT -6 dorn said:

Deck armour is at risk of penetration if it is not at least 2" thick by splinters.

Really? Is that why most auto-design protected cruisers default to 2" decks? The splinters can pass through into engineering or magazine spaces? It's interesting because the risk of plunging fire is almost nonexistent at such early eras, so I usually cut down the decks to 1", 1.5" at most, usually only for armored cruisers.

Really. It is not from plunging fire, but damage from splinters. If shell explodes above the deck armour, splinters are still dangerous and can penetrate deck armour if it is less than 2". This is change from RTW3 to RTW2 to increase realismus and give disadvantage to CLs or early battleships which ignores deck armour in their design.

[blarglol]

Dec 20, 2023 2:32:07 GMT -6 dorn said:

Dec 18, 2023 19:56:16 GMT -6 blarglol said:

Really? Is that why most auto-design protected cruisers default to 2" decks? The splinters can pass through into engineering or magazine spaces? It's interesting because the risk of plunging fire is almost nonexistent at such early eras, so I usually cut down the decks to 1", 1.5" at most, usually only for armored cruisers.

Really. It is not from plunging fire, but damage from splinters. If shell explodes above the deck armour, splinters are still dangerous and can penetrate deck armour if it is less than 2". This is change from RTW3 to RTW2 to increase realismus and give disadvantage to CLs or early battleships which ignores deck armour in their design.

Ah, thanks for the information, this explains many of the auto-designs

[krawa]

Thanks for pointing this out, I admit I was too General in my statement about CL deck armor. I played a battle last night where the 1,5"D of my CA was pierced by splinters from a 5" hit, resulting in a minor 4kn speed loss. While certainly unpleasant another ship took a belt penetrating hit to the engine room which caused speed to drop from 21 to 5kn. I might be wrong but it seems the effects from hits to the engine also have been increased from RTW2 to RTW3. It certainly feels more realistic and therefore I appriciate these changes.

Back to the topic of CL armor I still believe it is more important to keeo your ship safe from penetrating hits than from some odd splinter damage. For a CL I would prefer 1,5" sloped Deck over 2" flat Deck

[epigon]

Dec 15, 2023 10:33:23 GMT -6 director said:

Of course, the Brooklyns had 5" over the machinery spaces, the Clevelands had 3 1/2 to 5", the Town class had 4.5", even the Mogami's went up to 5" and La Galissonniere had about 4"... so, right! 3" maximum for every light cruiser it is!

I am perfectly fine with classifying 9,200 (La Gals) -14,200 (Clevelands) ton full load ships as heavy cruisers.

Wouldn't you agree that Leander, Dido, Arethusa, Atlanta etc. shouldn't be in the same class (displacement, purpose) as 10k+ "treaty" cruisers, regardless of the caliber?

[director]

epigon - I'd say, rather, that the treaty system made it just about impossible to effectively classify everything between 4000 tons and 10,000 tons as a cruiser (but what about the Capitani Romani? And Le Fantasque? And Kitakami? And...). One reasonable approach would have been to make the Royal Navy re-arm the Hawkins class with 6" guns, stick to the 10k tonnage limit and make the maximum gun caliber 6". On 10k tons you can just about get reasonable firepower, some protection and good speed with a 6" armament. You do give up some gun range because of the lighter shell, but in any sort of close action - say, at night or weather - a faster-firing gun is a better tool. The US Navy concluded that in 1943, which is why you don't see CAs on the US side in surface actions from mid-war on.

I think the 'battleship holiday' had the effect of turning cruisers into 'replacement' capital ships, so the building powers (except Britain) went to the maximum limit immediately and never stepped back. Given what we know now, Britain should have built smaller numbers of bigger cruisers - but, hey, even airpower enthusiasts didn't foresee how much aircraft would improve in a few short years, or that German surface raiders would be run out so quickly. None of the seven naval powers (US, Britain, Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Russia) started the war with the navy they actually would need.

But to directly address your point, if the treaty system had established 'light' cruisers as 4-8k tons and 'heavy' cruisers as 8-10k tons, then I don't think we'd have seen much change except the bigger ships would all have 8" guns. Britain gets the Town class and the US gets the Brooklyns because Japan built the Mogamis - which they wanted to be 8"-gunned cruisers anyway.

I do love the La Galissonniere design and I often build 9x6" CLs in RtW. But if you take a La Galissonierre up against a ship with 8x8" or more in daylight, I don't like your chances.



TLDR: If you come up with a classification system that can accurately sort ships into a small number of classifications, which the Washington and London parties would approve, then stop using your time on that and go win a fortune in Vegas. Seriously - I sympathize with your point, but if those ships had been called CAs then I believe they likely would have gotten an 8" armament.

[epigon]

I was approaching it from a gameplay perspective - if we stick to the letter, then game would treat the 6-inch Mogami and 8-inch Mogami differently for battle generator.
Not sure if it is fully reflected in the game, but I would take a Brooklyn or Cleveland over County, York, Myoko or Tone

[t3rm1dor]

Jan 10, 2024 15:42:32 GMT -6 epigon said:

I was approaching it from a gameplay perspective - if we stick to the letter, then game would treat the 6-inch Mogami and 8-inch Mogami differently for battle generator.
Not sure if it is fully reflected in the game, but I would take a Brooklyn or Cleveland over County, York, Myoko or Tone

Well differences between CA and CL in game currently is rather small - I usually gravitate towards CL due to DP and cost but I don't think building CA with CL characteristics would be much different.